Mumbai Journal: The Perils of Being Single and Female

The ludicrous attitude of pointing the finger of blame at women is pervasive, spreading to people in positions of high authority, says Nayantara Kilachand.

Here’s something that could prompt match-making aunties (not to mention this chap) to wish for the simpler days of arranged marriages: by 2020 India will have 17.4 million single-person households, with only the U.S., China and Japan ahead of us in the spinster stakes, according to market research firm Euromonitor.

This comes with its own set of challenges in India. For women in particular, the prospect of making it by yourself in any city, even one as open-minded as Mumbai, is bundled with a whole set of societal perceptions.

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Consider the first barrier – you earn enough to afford the high rents, paying far more than your cell-sized space is worth, convince a reluctant landlord who equates single with being devoid of basic etiquette and morality, and move in, triumphant that you’re officially part of the Aadhaar-carrying independent demographic that managed to get a gas, cable and Internet connection without 20 forms of ID. Then you go off to work, only to realize that services like dry cleaners shut by 6pm, and people delivering parcels assume you’ll have “a boy or maid” at home to open the door.

“Everything is set up with the assumption you’re coming back to a huge amount of infrastructure – [the system] is geared so that people can show up at 3pm in the afternoon and there will be someone to let them in,” says Rhea, a Mumbai-based journalist who moved here four-and-a-half years ago from Bangalore via New York.

It’s small stuff to be sure, especially given that Mumbai has the distinction of being one of India’s most single-friendly cities. But there’s a larger, more insidious notion at work, where we brush off the expectation that there should be someone, preferably a male chaperone related by blood or marriage, to protect us as “just the way it is.”

Like for instance, when building watchmen leer at women (which in one horrifying and extreme example led to the murder of 25-year-old Pallavi Purkayastha or men grope, shaded within crowds, the responsibility of prevention lies with women. So we adjust the way we dress and where we go, mindful that even as self-sufficient, financially independent adults, we’re still bound by norms reinforced on seemingly the most inconsequential scale.

The ludicrous attitude of pointing the finger of blame at women is pervasive, spreading to people in positions of high authority such as Mamata Banerjee, the outspoken chief minister of West Bengal, who recently suggested that rape cases are on the rise in India because men and women interact more freely, without parental intervention.

Of the eight women I spoke to on the subject of living alone in Mumbai, not one could say they had not had an incident where they had been felt up, followed, stalked or verbally assaulted on the street. Some had moved four or five times because of landlords and housing societies who deemed them “loose.” In several cases, they were assaulted – verbally and physically – in broad daylight, in the presence of crowds, who did nothing to intervene. Six of the eight said they had been flashed, even within their buildings, or while in cars.

“I physically feel a sense of dread when I’m in really crowded places, and I walk with clenched fists. I feel paranoid but I try not to let them get to me,” says Grishma Rao, a mobile app designer, who lives by herself in a bustling north Mumbai suburb.A recent incident where men near a train station taunted her for how she was dressed (she was wearing a knee-length skirt), left her horrified and wary of a city that she had always defended as being “accepting and safe.”

Saumya, a 29-year-old who has lived in hostels in Delhi, Bangalore and now Mumbai, says she’d rather live in hostels, even with their restrictions on curfew, alcohol and boys, because of the security it affords.

Namita Sekhar, a 26-year-old graphic designer, says it’s a feat that she’s managed to stay in one flat for four years. “I used to think the fact that I was a single educated girl that people would think ‘oh, we’d have no problems with her.’ But it’s an unsaid thing that as a single girl you’re dangerous goods to rent out to,” she says, pointing out that she’s careful not to have her male friends over because “assumptions are going to be made.”

Milena Raskovic, a marketing executive, who moved here from New Zealand four years ago, recounted an incident that speaks volumes of our attitude toward women when not “guarded” by male company. A young man who followed her in the afternoon in an upmarket neighborhood tried to touch her, she says. “I tell him to ‘f off,’ he in turn tells me to ‘f off’ as this is his country and he can touch my body if he wants to because I’m in his country.”

As with these illicit shutterbugs, there’s the sense that because someone is female or indeed foreign, the onus is on them to protect themselves. The fault and shame lies with the victim, not the harasser, something so deeply entrenched in our cultural psyche, that a politician thinks nothing of attributing most rapes to consensual sex that gets out of hand.

“This stuff happens and you have to deal with it,” says Ms. Rao, who along with several of the women took pains to stress that despite these hassles, they’d still rather live in Mumbai than any other city in India. “When it comes to living day to day you have to let these things slide,” she says.

That underscores a more dangerous habit: when it comes to “adjusting” attitude, perception, clothing or behaviour, it’s only ever really expected from the female side.

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